


Exam day

by Nekoamamori



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-05 22:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 22,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13398033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nekoamamori/pseuds/Nekoamamori
Summary: Imagine Loki walking you home after a long school day.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is planned to be a one-shot, but might add to it later, especially if there's demand for more adventures with these characters.

    “Loki, I’ll play with you all day on Saturday,” you reminded the bored Trickster God. Again. Life as a high school student living in the Avenger’s tower was hard enough. It was harder when you were living there because Tony had adopted you. It was even _more_ difficult when the Trickster God thought you were the least boring thing around.

    “But Y/N!” he protested. Again.

    You sighed heavily and dug in your bag. You’d bought him a present, knowing he’d be difficult today. “Loki. I _have_ to study. I have two AP exams tomorrow. I need to pass them. We’ve been over this. You promised to behave until Saturday and I promised to spend the entire day with you.”

    “But you have been studying all day!” he complained. Again.

    You should have studied in your room instead of in the living room, but your room was lonely and there was always company down here. Company came in the form of a Loki most of the time, but he was pleasant company if he liked someone, and he had decided he liked you.

    “Yes, I have, and will continue studying for the rest of the day. I knew you’d be trouble though,” you teased. You pulled his present out of your bag and handed it to him. “That should keep you entertained for awhile.” You would also never tell Tony that you’d bought it. He still hated Loki, even though he’d been here almost a year. The _only_ thing Tony seemed to like about Loki was that Loki liked you well enough to make sure you were safe. You even put up with Loki walking you to school, though you’d never put up with Happy or the other guards. Natasha had taught you a few tricks to convince them they were better off not trying to guard you if you caught them at it. Thor had somehow convinced Tony to let Loki walk you to school one day, and was your permanent escort when he not only survived the experience, but his company was welcomed.

    He looked at the wrapped box excitedly. “What is it?” he asked like an overly excited puppy. No one else ever saw this side of him. He was usually quiet and reserved around the others. Lucky them when you needed to study.

    “You’ll have to open the box and find out,” you teased him. You watched amused as he opened the paper, almost hesitantly as if he were afraid of a nasty trick in the box. He pulled the items out of the box, but still looked confused. You laughed. “It’s a game,” you explained and showed him how to turn on the handheld game system and inset the games. “Try this one. You’re a hero named Mario who has to go save a princess,” you told him. He curled up contentedly on his end of the couch with the game and let you get back to your studying.

    *

    “Loki! Give me my book back!” You yelled at him what you realized was hours later. The book had vanished from your hands.

    “After dinner,” he replied pleasantly. You looked around. No one was here, which was strange. Usually Tony, Pepper, or Steve would’ve come around by now to make sure everyone ate. You sighed.

    “Let me guess, you’re hungry and still refuse to learn how to make anything for yourself,” you teased. The last time he had attempted to cook he somehow had managed to burn an egg on the outside and have it still be raw in the middle. No one trusted him with anything more complicated than boiling water for his tea. He wouldn’t dignify your comment with an answer. “Jarvis, where is everyone?” you asked as you got up off of the couch to go see what you could make for dinner.

    “They had to go out on a mission, Miss Stark,” Jarvis replied. “Mr. Stark did not want you to worry while you were studying.” His voice sounded sheepish.  He wasn't supposed to tell you.

    “Looks like it’s just us tonight, then,” you told Loki. “Chinese?” He shrugged in reply, being unhelpful as usual when it came to food. “Jarvis, can you place the order?” You got an affirmative and went back to the couch. “Remember how this works?” you asked Loki, pulling a twenty from the cash jar on your way back to the couch. He got cranky if you tried to answer the door for the delivery men, but hadn’t wanted to learn how to do it himself.

    He rolled his eyes extra dramatically. “Yes, Y/N. It is a simple task,” he grumbled.

    “Can I have my book back now?” you asked, handing him the twenty and settling on the couch. He huffed, but your book reappeared in your hands. “Thank you.” You placed your cold toes on him while you reviewed. It never bothered him when you did, though you were always amused at the blue spots on his skin from where your ice cold toes hit. Jarvis announced the deliveryman a short while later. “Remember, you can’t stab the delivery guy. If you stab him, he won’t bring me food anymore and I’ll be grumpy,”

    Loki was laughing as he went to get the food. “I do not wish for you to be grumpy,” he replied. He paid the deliveryman and brought the food back. Your textbook vanished again when he returned to the room. You huffed at him, but helped him dish out the Chinese.

    “How are you liking the game?” you asked him while you ate. He gushed about how much fun it was to stomp on the monsters and how frustrated he was that the princess wasn’t in any of the castles he visited.

    At least he gave you your book back after dinner like he’d promised.

    *

    “Loki, seriously, stop stealing my books!” you yelled at him much later. You looked at the clock. It was nearly midnight. Oops, you hadn’t meant to stay up this late with your exams in the morning.

    “If these exams are as important as you say, surely you will be needing sleep,” he commented casually. He stood from the couch and offered you a hand. You rolled your eyes but took it and allowed him to haul you to your feet.

    “You don’t have to walk me to my room,” you told him. Again. You had this conversation almost every night. He had stopped coming up with excuses a long time ago.

    “I do not have to. I wish to,” he replied, his usual response. So you let him walk you to your room. You placed your hand on his arm, letting him escort you like a lady. Some nights you walked side-by-side companionable silence, some nights arm in arm, some nights holding his hand, some nights when you were being particularly stubborn about going to bed thrown over his shoulder, and once cradled in his arms after you’d fallen asleep on the couch. It was a wonderfully comfortable friendship you’d formed with him. Tonight, after he’d checked your room for intruders...or monsters... or whatever he thought might be lurking in there, he bowed over your hand and kissed your knuckles. You offered him an impudent curtsy in reply.

    “Night, Trickster,”

    “Goodnight, Y/N,” his voice and eyes both held a warm smile, even as you closed the door between you.

    *

    “Y/N, please stop trying to read and walk at the same time,” Loki urged you the next morning as he was walking you to school.  He dragged you away from walking into a pole. You had your nose buried in your textbook. “You are going to walk into something, or into traffic,”

    “But I forgot to review this section!” you told him frantically. He sighed heavily and offered you an arm.

    “Very well, but at least let me escort you so you do not hurt yourself,” his tone was exasperated, but amused. You laughed and placed your hand on his arm so he could guide you and you could continue staring at your notes as you walked. It still took effort on his part to make sure you didn’t walk into traffic, or other pedestrians. “Time to pay attention for yourself,” he told you with laughter in his voice some time later. “We have arrived,”

    You looked up and blinked, not realizing you were already at the steps to the school. “Thanks, Loki.” You stood up on your toes to kiss his cheek, a friendly, familiar gesture. You knew he was putting up with a lot from you this week. “I’m sorry, I know I’m going to be awful company this afternoon. These exams are hell and I wouldn’t be surprised if my brains are dribbling out of my ears at the end of the day.” He gave you a questioning look. “Figuratively, of course,” you added quickly and laughed at the look of relief on his face. “You can send Happy to pick me up,” you offered. “I won’t be offended, or kill him. Like I said, I know I won’t be pleasant company,”

    “I will see you after school,” he replied instead of even considering that Happy could come pick you up. You waved and darted up the steps into the school to go face your hell exams.

    *

    Two AP exams in one day was hell. Hell was not a strong enough word. There were no words strong enough for the feeling of trying to pull every single fact you’d learned about a subject out of your brain for hours straight was awful. Doing it twice with only a short lunch in between was just torture. Whoever designed this system should be shot. Repeatedly. After you let Natasha beat them up. Or Loki, he was pretty creative when it came to killing people, or so you’d heard. You thought you might feel better if your brains _were_ dribbling out of your ears. It might hurt less and you might be able to think more clearly.

    You left the school that afternoon via the same door you’d entered that morning. Loki was standing at the bottom of the stairs waiting for you. You barely recognized that fact in your exhausted haze. You stumbled down the stairs to him and wrapped your arms around him, holding him too tightly as you fwumped your head against his chest, making a small pitiful whining noise.

    He chuckled. “Poor darling. Were the exams that awful?” he asked, wrapping an arm around your shoulders to steer you towards home. You nodded, but even that made your head hurt.

    “They were _so_ bad,” you whined.

    “Your brain appears to not be leaking out of your ears at least,” he teased.

    “It might as well be,” you grumbled, managing to lay your head on his shoulder with your eyes closed as you walked, trusting him to get you home safely. You were too brain dead to manage it on your own. You didn’t notice or care that he had vanished your schoolbag and all of your heavy books. You just wanted to keep your eyes closed and relax.

    He sighed in that mix of put-upon and fake-exasperation that you knew too well led to nothing but mischief. You opened your eyes to see what he was up to, but before you could register more than the mischievous glint in his eyes, he had swept you up into his strong arms as though you weighed nothing. “Loki!” you protested as he continued striding toward the tower. You were drawing a lot of attention, though he had already drawn plenty by picking you up and carrying you. “I can walk!”

    “Sure you can,” he replied dryly. “You nearly tripped over the sidewalk twice already and you are too brain dead to have even noticed,”

    “There’s still a mile walk before we get home!” you protested. That was way too far for him to carry you.

    “You best get comfortable then, darling,” he replied pleasantly. You huffed and rolled your eyes at his stubbornness, but wrapped your arms around his neck and closed your eyes. Despite the people pointing on the street and making comments and taking pictures. You were both pretty famous, you for being Tony’s adopted daughter, and Loki for being...Loki.

    He would probably give up long before you got back to the tower regardless.

    You were wrong.

    So very wrong.

    He didn’t put you down again until you were outside of your bedroom’s door.

    “Thank you,” you told him sheepishly, embarrassed that you’d needed his help to get home. You were feeling less brain dead from getting to zone out and relax on the way home.

    “Anytime, love,” he replied with his warm smile. He shocked you again that day by leaning down to kiss you. An actual kiss, not a kiss on the cheek, or hand, but an actual kiss on the lips. You kissed him back, enjoying the experience, and still too dazed and brain dead to quite consider the consequences. “I have been waiting a _very_ long time to do that,” he said softly when the light kiss had ended.

    “That was wonderful,” you told him equally softly. You then somehow flushed and paled at the same time as your heart sank. “Tony is going to kill us,” you reminded him in horror. Jarvis had probably already told Tony.

    “Let him try,” Loki replied with a grin. “I have left a surprise for you in your room,” he added mischievously.

    “What is it?” you asked dumbly.

    “If you open the door, you will find out,” he said overly pleasantly. You opened the door and found your room filled with roses. Every single flat surface had vases and vases of roses. You just gasped in shock and awe at the sight. “I thought you would like it,” his voice was pleased. “There is also a hot bubble bath waiting for you. I thought you would need to relax after all of the stress of the exams.” You didn’t have any words strong enough to thank him with, so you turned and kissed him again. He chuckled when the kiss broke. “You’re welcome, darling,”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, I accidentally another chapter

    “Karen, convince Jarvis not to send any footage to Dad for the last ten minutes,” you called to your computer system. Tony had made Jarvis. You had made Karen, years after you’d hacked into Jarvis. That’s what had drawn Tony’s attention to you in the first place. He’d wanted to meet the hacker who could hack his system. You’d done it on a dare when you were 8. He was so impressed he took you home with him that day, leaving poor Pepper to figure out the paperwork.

    You didn’t want Tony to find out about your kiss with Loki before he had to. He wouldn’t be pleased.

    “Yes, Miss,” she replied pleasantly.

    You made your way to your bathroom, still grinning idiotically at all of the roses. Your room would smell like them for ages. You found the steaming hot bubble bath waiting for you as promised. You soaked for a long time in the water that seemed to never cool from the perfect temperature. It was perfect for relieving the last of the stress from the exams that day. Maybe on Sunday you’d splurge and go to the spa. That was laughable. You’d more likely spend the day in your lab, finally getting back to your own projects once your exams were over.

    *

    You made your way back down to the living room after your bubble bath in your pajamas, a tank top and summer-weight long pajama pants. It didn’t concern you that you were alone in the tower with Loki in your pajamas. He’d seen you in pajamas or less (including the bikini incident) so many times over the last year, it didn’t matter anymore. You also had the textbook you were supposed to be reviewing for the next day’s exam. You were glad tomorrow’s was the last exam.

    “Feeling better?” Loki greeted you when you entered the room.

    “That was perfect,” you purred, still unable to stop grinning like an idiot. You curled up on the couch, intending the study. You really, really intended to study.

    Somehow studying became kissing Loki.

    You had absolutely no idea how that happened.

    Or how you ended up in his lap.

    Or how your fingers were curled perfectly in his hair as you kissed him.

    Or how perfectly his arms wrapped around you.

    “Darling, fun as this is, don’t you have another exam tomorrow?” Loki asked softly between kisses. He didn't want to stop, but he didn't want to risk your exams either.  Or whatever fun he was planning for Saturday.  

    You laughed in reply. “It’s AP computer science. If I can’t pass that after I built Karen from scratch, I deserve to fail,” you replied.

    “That is fair enough,” he replied and gave you yet another kiss.

    “Miss, Peter is calling you,” Karen’s voice announced from the phone in your pocket. You sighed and dug the phone out of the pocket of your pajama pants. Loki pouted.

    “I have to answer,” you reminded him. “Hey, Pete, what’s up?” you asked when you answered the phone. Loki ran his fingers through your hair and rubbed the muscles in your back where you tended to hold stress, while you talked. It was rather distracting. You didn’t move from his lap, though, enjoying his distracting touches.

    “Hey, Y/N, I’m having some issues with my suit. Can you take a look after school tomorrow?”

    “Is Karen giving you trouble?” you asked in reply. You’d programmed Karen into his Spiderman suit and it was the first use of Karen outside of your own personal systems.

    “A bit, but I’m sure it’s my own fault.”

    You rolled your eyes. “You and your computer friend were playing with the software again, weren’t you?”

    “She went into instant kill mode!” he whined

    “After you played with the software,” you accused. He hesitated too long. “I can come by after school and fix her,” you told him. Loki was bored and stopped rubbing your back to braid a lock of your hair. He could be such a child when he was bored. You poked his nose while he was working, which just made him grin at you.

    “Can I swing by there?”

    “Fine...” you grumbled “but you have to have me over for one of Aunt May’s homemade dinners soon.” You loved going over there since Aunt May made the best food. Tony didn’t cook and Pepper was always too busy. Hell, both of them were too busy, so unless you made food, one of the other Avengers were around, or you ordered in, dinner didn’t happen. Everyone ate, eventually, but it was usually takeout or delivery. Jarvis knew your order for every restaurant around that would deliver to the Avenger’s tower. It was nice to have a sit-down dinner. Aunt May adopted all of Peter’s friends, including you and everyone who came over was fed.

    “Fine, but can you stress to her that we’re not dating?” he asked.

    “Sure. I can bring my boyfriend if that’ll help,” you offered. Loki hugged you tighter when you said that. You had to fight hard not to squeek when he did. He kissed your forehead in reply. Peter laughed.

    “I’m not sure she’d appreciate that,”

    You laughed in reply. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then. I’ve gotta get going, I have an AP exam in the morning.” He said goodbye and you hung up the phone. “You are incorrigible,” you told Loki, who had somehow french-braided your hair perfectly, even though you were still sitting on his lap facing him.

    “Whatever are you going to do about it?” he asked with a grin.

    “This,” you replied and kissed him again.

    *

    “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” Tony’s voice boomed, interrupting your kisses. You and Loki both swung your heads to the elevator at the same time. All of the Avengers were there. Tony was still in his ironman suit too.

    You were so dead.

    Loki was probably more dead.

    Before you could even try to think of some explanation that would have any effect, the group had fallen upon the two of you. You were ripped off of Loki’s lap and held in a chair on the other side of the room with Nat’s hands on your shoulders and Cap standing in front of you as a human shield.

    Thor was standing in front of Loki, staring down Tony, who looked ready to kill Loki. You saw when you peered around Cap that Loki had Mjolnir in his lap. “Is this really necessary?” Loki demanded of Thor grumpily. He was stuck there until Thor removed the hammer.

    “Quiet, brother,” Thor snapped, turning his attention back to Tony to try to cool Tony’s temper.

    “He’s enchanted her somehow!” Tony exclaimed.

    “I have done no such thing,” Loki replied calmly.

    “Shut up, brother,” Thor snapped again. “You are not helping.”

    “I’m not enchanted!” you protested. You knew better than to struggle against Nat’s grip. “Dad!”

    “How do we break the enchantment?” Tony demanded.

    “Dad, you know perfectly well the way to break a mind control enchantment is cognitive re-calibration, which one, you won’t do, and two, would be ineffective since I’m _not_ enchanted,” you told Tony perfectly reasonably.  Cognitive re-calibration meant hitting in the head really hard.

    “Stark, I don’t think she’s enchanted,” Nat said, loosening her grip on your shoulders. Apparently she was convinced by your reasonable argument.

    “Brother, have you enchanted Y/N?” Thor asked reasonably.

    Loki rolled his eyes. “Of course not. I would do no such thing.” Thor seemed to believe that and removed Mjolnir from Loki’s lap. Loki stood and came over to you.

    “They did not hurt you, did they, darling?” he asked after he had managed to get passed the others. You shook your head.

    "No, I'm fine," you reassured him softly.

    “Then why was she kissing you?” Tony demanded, still upset, but he was losing and he knew it. Everyone had seen how Loki was around you, and just because the two of you had taken your sweet time about acknowledging there was a relationship, didn’t mean one hadn’t been building for a year, or that the others hadn’t seen it. You were both each other’s best friends. Even Tony had seen it, though he hadn’t wanted to admit it.

    “Because I wanted to?” you asked grumpily. Tony just spluttered. He was obviously still angry. He really didn’t like Loki. It had something to do with defenestration.

    “Tony...” Pepper said calmly from the elevator, seeming to have understood the events from just walking into the room. “This has been coming for awhile. Let them be,”

    After the situation diffused, you had to actually study and stop pretending or avoiding it. Loki returned to playing his new game system on his end of the couch while you placed your cold toes on him as usual. The Avengers kept walking through or finding reasons to hang out in the living room that night, but nothing had changed except that they had caught you kissing earlier.

    “Y/N, shouldn’t you be getting to bed?” Tony asked later, though not at late as you usually went to bed.

    “Dad...” you started, but he just gave you a look. You rolled your eyes, having an idea what he was up to. “I _should_ get some sleep. I do have an exam in the morning. Oh, I forgot to mention, Pete’s coming over tomorrow. He wants me to take a look at his suit. I think he and his friend were messing with Karen’s code again.” Tony nodded distractedly. Loki moved to stand, to escort you to your room, but you stopped him. “Dad wants to read you the riot act or go over the rules for dating his daughter or some such nonsense. I’ll see you in the morning,” you told him. You leaned down to give him a very chaste kiss.

    Thor stood and offered you his arm. You laughed as you took it. “I will escort your lady safely, brother,” he announced in his normal booming tone. He seemed pleased with the development. Tony was the only one who was unhappy, but he was a dad, it was to be expected. Loki inclined his head, allowing his brother to do the job that was usually his. Loki didn’t seem pleased, but seemed to accept that this was important. Thor walked you to your room and checked the inside, just as Loki always did. “I am glad you and my brother have finally started your courtship. You have been good for him already,” Thor told you before he bowed over your hand, kissing your knuckles.

    “Thanks, Thor,” you replied kindly and slipped into your room, closing the door behind you. The room was still covered in roses. “Karen, let me know if Dad tries to kill Loki,” you told her before you settled in bed to read until it was actually time to get some sleep.

    *

    Loki appeared as an illusion next to your bed some time later. You knew it was an illusion when you threw a stuffed animal at it and it went right through. The throw wasn’t malicious, you had just needed to know whether it was an illusion or not, and touching an illusion was the only surefire way to know if it was an illusion. An illusion in your room this late at night was one thing, him actually being here would be a different story.

    “How’d the riot act go?” you asked him.

    “Apparently if I hurt you or break your heart he will kill me. And he informed me quite firmly that he does not like me,” Loki replied dryly.

    “That’s the standard riot act,” you informed him. He nodded.

    “I figured as much. Was my brother polite?” he asked, sounding worried.

    “He always is, silly trickster,” you laughed.

    “Then I shall see you in the morning,”

    “Night, Loki,” you told him softly.

    “Goodnight, darling,” he replied with a soft, warm smile before the illusion vanished.


	3. Chapter 3

    “I thought you were not worried about this exam and did not need to study, especially while walking,” Loki grumbled as he hauled you away from walking into traffic. Again.

    “I just need to look up this command,” you protested. Again.

    “You make my job of guarding you difficult when you keep walking into traffic,” he muttered, holding your arm so you had to walk at his pace and not into traffic while you flipped through the pages of the textbook you were searching.

    “At least I shouldn’t be so brain dead after today’s exam,” you reminded him.

    “That will be a relief. I disliked seeing you in that state,” he said. “This one is not much better,” he grumbled as he had to haul you away from running into a pole. He wrapped his arm around your shoulders instead, holding you close to his side to make sure you wouldn’t die by trying to read and walk at the same time. “Can you please stop trying to read and walk at the same time?” he grumbled.

    “I can’t find this command!” you whined. Loki grabbed the book and yanked it from your hands. “Loki!” you exclaimed with frustrated tears in your eyes. You were so stressed about exams that your emotions were out of hands. You weren’t usually like this.

    “Take the phone out of your pocket and ask Karen,” he told you gently, kindly. You just looked up at him, feeling stupid for not thinking of that. You pulled your phone from your pocket and did just as he suggested, having your answer in a moment. He pulled you into a hug. “Now will you please relax? You will do fine on the exam. You built Karen from scratch, remember?” he asked. You nodded.

    “I’m sorry, I’ll be better after this exam is over. It’s the last one for the year,” you reminded him.

    He kissed your forehead. “I know, darling, I know.” He kept your textbook and walked you the rest of the way to school with his arm around you. “Go slay that exam,” he bid you before he kissed you.

    “Don’t forget I get out of school right after the exam,” you reminded him.

    “What time will that be?”

    “Around 11,”

    “I will see you then,” he replied with a smile. He at least handed your book back before you ran up the stairs so you wouldn’t be late for your exam.

    *

    You actually felt good about the exam as you bounced down the steps of the school after it was over. You had gotten out a little earlier than anticipated so Loki wasn’t here yet. You sat on a brick wall next to the school to wait for him to get there. You pulled a tiny screwdriver out of your bag to make an adjustment to the watch on your wrist. The watch wasn’t really a watch at all. Granted, it had watch capabilities, but it was a piece of tech you’d made yourself fully integrated with Karen. It had a one-shot repulsor in it as well. Your pet project right now was to increase the number of shots for the repulsor. It was difficult until you could figure out how to miniaturize an arc reactor, or some other power supply. Right now, though, it had a screw loose inside that was messing up the whole thing. You’d noticed that morning when you’d tried to ask Karen a question through it and the whole thing had rattled instead of her answering you. So you sat on the wall and took it apart so you could fix the screw.

    “Darling, don’t you have a lab to play with the things that explode in?” Loki asked when you shrieked and dropped the watch when it caught fire in your hands. He chuckled as he walked the last couple of steps to where you were sitting on the wall.

    “I do,” you said as you beat the fire out. You picked up the watch and sighed. It was going to take a lot more work to fix now that it had caught fire. Once it was extinguished completely, you shoved it in your school bag. You’d fix it later. Or make a better one.

    “How did you get up there?” he asked curiously, looking up at you. Sitting on the wall put your head a good foot above his or more.

    “I climbed,” you replied with a grin. “Mind helping me down?” you asked, tossing your bag down first. He reached up for you, holding you by the waist. You placed your hands on his shoulders and let him lift you down from the wall. You laughed when he kissed you as he did.

    “How was the exam?” he asked when you were safely on your feet again. You reached for your bag,, but it had vanished. He gave you a smirk when you looked over at him.

    “It was cake,” you replied with a grin as you took his hand.

    “I knew you would do well,” he answered.

    “Have you eaten?” you asked, not quite ready to go home yet. He shook his head. “C’mon, there’s a new authentic Japanese restaurant that opened nearby.” You held his hand more tightly and dragged him with you to the restaurant. He laughed as he let himself be dragged like a favorite stuffed toy. He looked impressed when you ordered in Japanese for both of you. You shrugged. “I’ve learned a little bit of a bunch of different languages,” you explained while you ate, trying not to laugh at his attempts to use chop sticks. “Tony travels all over the world for business. At least he used to, now he does for the Avengers, so I don’t get to travel with him as much anymore. Next I’ll have to learn Asgardian,” you teased.

    “I would be willing to teach you if you truly want to learn,” he replied pleasantly.

    “Really?” you asked excitedly. “It’d be nice to be able to read your books without having to make you illusion them for me,”

    “Maybe I shouldn’t teach you after all,” he teased. You stuck your tongue out at him in reply.

    “You’re just bad at sharing,” you replied. “You have a brother. You should’ve learned how to share,” you teased. He laughed.

    “Thor and I are terrible at sharing. We have fought our entire lives.”

    “I also heard you turned into a snake and stabbed him,”

    “Which time?” he laughed.

    After lunch, you dragged him to the bookstore and watched his child-like glee at all of the books it held. Books and desserts were his weaknesses. As per usual, he wanted to take the entire store home with you. He finally picked out an armful that you both could agree on. By then, it was getting late enough that you had to get back to the tower before Peter showed up.

    *

    Peter showed up when you were in your lab working. Jarvis announced his arrival. “J, can you send him to my lab?” you asked, not wanting to leave your work. You really didn’t want it blowing up again.

    “Yes, Miss Stark,” Jarvis replied.

    “Karen, try not to set my watch on fire this time,” you told her. Loki was looking over your designs on the computer nearby.

    “You will need much smaller arc reactors for these designs,” Loki commented. You nodded absently.

    “Or some other way to get the power from a full-sized arc reactor to the bracelets. I haven’t come up with a good solution to the power problem, yet,” you grumbled.

    “Hey, Y/N,” Peter said from the door to the lab. You waved him in, soldering iron still in your hand.

    “Hey, Pete. Give me just a sec. I don’t want this to catch fire again today,” you asked Jarvis to make a couple more parts for you and turned to Peter.

    “Didn’t see you at lunch today,” he commented as he dug his Spiderman mask out of his bag.

    “I had an AP exam this morning, so I got the afternoon off,” you reminded him. He nodded.

    “Don’t know how you do it,” he replied, handing you the mask. You flipped it inside out and plugged it in to your computer.

    “Karen, run diagnostic,” you ordered.

    “Yes, Miss,” she replied and began running the diagnostics tests.

    “I’m not being a superhero on the side,” you reminded Peter.

    “Oh right, that,” he laughed.

    “Diagnostics are done. Peter attempted to turn off kindergarten mode. Again.” Karen announced. You glared at Peter, who just looked sheepish.

    “Sorry,” he mumbled. You sighed and got to work fixing the damage.

    “I’m sorry, Karen. He’s so mean to you,” you told her while you worked to put your baby back together. “Aww, he ripped a hole in your code. No wonder you were so upset with him. Pete, you made a big mess of her this time. Stop messing with my code or I’ll install baby mode on here,” you grumbled at him, typing furiously to fix what he’d done.

    “How is your code so much more sophisticated than anything I’ve worked on?” he grumbled.

    “I built it myself, doofus. I hacked Jarvis when I was 8. I build my own tech as pet projects. Hell, Dad trusted me to build the tech for your suit. That should say something about my abilities,”

    “I expected it to be less able than Jarvis,” he pouted. You sighed and turned to one of the many tablet like devices in the room. You flipped a holographic version if Jarvis into the air.

    “That’s Jarvis,” you told Peter. You then flicked up a holographic image of Karen beside Jarvis. “And that’s Karen,” the two programs looked similar, but Karen was more sophisticated. You’d been working on her for years. She’d been based off Jarvis originally.

    “Wow,” Peter just stared. Loki looked on proudly. “Aren’t you bored down here?” Peter asked Loki when you dismissed the holograms and got back to work fixing Peter’s suit. “This doesn’t seem like something you’d enjoy,”

    Loki shrugged, unused to people trying to be nice to him. Peter was just nice to everyone. “It’s not so bad, the company is pleasant, and it is interesting to learn about Earthen technologies,” he explained.

    “Hey, Jarvis, do you know when the rest of the team’s coming home?” you asked while you worked.

    “In time for dinner. Mr. Stark is having dinner delivered. He left money in the cash jar and asks that one of you three children pay the deliveryman when he arrives.” You rolled your eyes.

    “Thanks, J. Can you tell him that we got the message, my exam went great, and I love him?”

    “I will do so, Miss Stark,” he replied. You finished Peter’s mask and handed it back.

    “Wanna try it out?” you asked.

    “Nah, I trust your work,” he replied and shoved the mask back in his bag. You almost turned back to your pet project, but Loki grabbed your chair and wheeled it away from the table.

    “Loki!” you huffed at him.

    “Darling, we have a visitor. We have to pay attention to him,” he reminded you gently. You pouted. “Your project will still be here on Sunday.” He hauled you to your feet before you could protest and kissed you before you could whine at him.

    “You were serious about the boyfriend, thing?” Peter demanded. You flushed, having forgotten he was here.

    “Yeah,” you answered. Loki wrapped an arm around you and the three of you headed upstairs to the livingroom.

    *

    You and Peter were kicking Loki’s ass at video games when dinner arrived. Loki grumbled and pouted, but he was having fun with you anyway. As per usual, he insisted on answering the door for the deliveryman, even if it meant paying. Tonight’s delivery was everything the pizza place made. Looked like the entire team would be here tonight.

    You grinned when they all piled off of the elevator at the same time, especially since Peter and Loki were both sitting on the floor to better kill each other at whatever fighting game they were playing. You were sitting on your favorite couch when you announced “The floor is lava!”

    You pulled your feet up to sit cross legged and watch (and video) the chaos. Peter jumped up on the ceiling and stuck there upside-down to watch the chaos too. Loki teleported to the couch next to you. You laughed while the rest of the team attempted to get to safety.

    They all ran for various pieces of furniture. Nat climbed up onto Clint’s shoulders while he yelled at her to get off of him. She leapt from his shoulders onto the coffee table, then helped him climb onto it with her. Thor swung Mjolnir a couple times until he could fly over to one of the couches.

    The illusion of lava appeared on the floor a moment later, courtesy of a certain trickster. You laughed when Tony tried to jump on the table with Nat and Clint and knocked all three of them into the ‘lava’.

    The team wasn’t usually so silly, but even they could relax occasionally.

    You were all laughing when Cap walked into the room from the next elevator, looked at the chaos and the lava-floor. He just shook his head and started walking toward the pizza, accepting his loss with dignity.

    It was an evening of silly party games and story telling. It wasn’t a true party, no alcohol was served while the minors were around, but it was fun nonetheless.

    “Y/N, are you going to the Meg’s end of the year party next Friday?” Peter asked. You shrugged.

    “Haven’t decided yet. Parties aren’t really my thing,”

    “Well, I’ll be there, so you’ll at least have a friendly face there if you decide to come,” he replied.

    It wasn’t long before he had to head home before Aunt May got worried. Tony had Happy drive him so he wouldn’t be late. Tony kept adopting strays. You were the first of them.

    The team apparently forgot you were a minor and got the alcohol out after Peter left. They’d had a long week of hard missions, so you didn’t blame them for wanting to relax. Thor told the best stories after his tongue had been loosened, so you always tried to stay quiet and see what stories he’d tell.

    You curled up with Loki on the couch, laying your head on him to listen to everyone’s stories. “Darling, you should go to bed soon,” Loki told you softly late into that night. You blinked up at him stupidly. “You promised to play with me all day Saturday if I let you study this week,” he reminded you. “It has been officially Saturday for a few hours now,”

    “You don’t really want us to start our day at 3am, do you?” you could go without sleep for days on end, another trait you shared with Tony, but you weren’t always pleasant about it, and generally only did so when you were working on something in the lab.

    “No, I will let you sleep for a little while. And then we will have our fun,” he purred softly. You smiled up at him and moved to get back to your feet. You said your goodnights to the team, kissed Tony on the cheek and let Loki walk you to your room, and let him check the room for monsters.

    You pulled your phone out of your pocket and snapped a selfie of the two of you kissing, which was instantly posted to all of your social media. You grinned at your bit of fun. “Why are you grinning?” he asked, admiring the picture on your phone.

    “Because that’s going to get a lot of comments from everyone who follows me on every social media platform. And all of the news. It’s a fun little bit of mischief. It’ll be more fun watching them debate whether you’re the real Loki or just someone who looks like him,”

    He thought that over, then summoned his golden horned helmet on his head. “Would this help?” he asked when it was in place. You kissed him again and he helped you get the picture.

    “That will be the next one I post after they argue over the first one for awhile,” you told him with a grin. With a smirk of mischief and fun, you grabbed the helmet off of his head.

    “Hey!” he protested, reaching to take it back from you. You laughed and plopped it on your own head instead, taking a couple of steps back to stay out of his reach. He took a picture of you while you were laughing at the expression on his face. “You are adorable, darling, but may I have that back now?”

    “You have to kiss me first,” you told him. He sighed over dramatically and looked so put upon.

    “Very well,” he mock-groaned. He gave you the most excellent kiss so deep and perfect that it made your knees weak. When it ended a long while later, you removed his helmet from your head and handed it back to him. He vanished it. “Sleep well, darling,” he bid you softly.

    “Goodnight, Loki,”

    You fell asleep that night still dreaming of that kiss.


	4. Chapter 4

    “Wake up, Y/N!” Loki announced brightly, nearly bouncing next to your bed. You groaned and cracked your eyes open.

    “Loki, the sun isn’t even up yet,” you moaned and tried to roll over to go back to sleep.

    “You promised,” he pouted. You groaned again, but sat up, rubbing sleep from your eyes. He grabbed your hands to pull you out of bed. “You’ve slept for three whole hours, c’mon!” he bid excitedly.

    “Loki, I’ve told you before. Fragile little humans need more sleep than Asgardians,” you grumbled at him, but got out of the bed. You could survive without much sleep. “What kind of plans can you possibly have for the day that start at 6am?” you asked, still trying to wake up. Three hours of sleep after the week of hell you’d had was not nearly enough.

    “You’ll see!” he said like an excited puppy. He used magic and clothes appeared on your bed. “I picked something out for you,” he sounded proud of himself. You looked at the dress on your bed.

    “Loki, you know I don’t wear dresses. I think you can count how many times you’ve seen me in a dress and not run out of fingers,”

    “I’d like to run out of fingers to count that experience on,” he replied and gave you a kiss. “Please?” he pouted with puppy-dog eyes. You rolled your eyes.

    “Fine,” you sighed. “Get out so I can shower and get dressed,” you told him and shoved him bodily from the room when he jokingly dug his heels in. He didn’t mean it, it was a joke. He would never push or pry. “Just because you were there for the bikini incident does _not_ mean you get to watch me shower, or dress. Shoo, silly Trickster.” You slammed your bedroom door behind him when you finally had propelled him through it. You were both laughing.

    You showered and dressed in the beautiful green sundress Loki had picked out. Or made. Sometimes it was hard to tell with Loki and you never remembered what dresses you actually owned, since they just took up space in the back of your closet. Most of the time you lived in jeans and t-shirts. You were feeling benevolent toward Loki, especially after he’d put up with your studying all week and not paying attention to him, so you actually did your hair for once too, instead of tying it in its usual ponytail. You grabbed your sandals and a small cute purse before you left the room. Loki was waiting on the other side of your bedroom door. He grinned when he saw you. “You look lovely in dresses,” he told you and raised your hand to his lips to kiss the back of it. You smiled.

    “Thank you,” you replied. He placed your hand on the crook of his elbow to lead you downstairs.

    “You do have your keys, right?” he asked, eyeing your purse. You nodded. He hadn’t learned how to drive yet, or gotten anyone to make him an ID. He couldn’t exactly get one legally.

    “Are you going to tell me where I’m driving to?” you asked him, curious what he had planned.

    “Nope,” he replied with a grin. You laughed, but took the elevator with him down to where the cars were parked.

    “Jarvis, if Dad asks, remind him that I’m out spending the day with Loki. I have my phone if you need me,” you announced while you were in the elevator. Tony got worried when he forgot where you were and you weren’t in your lab or school. It was common courtesy to remind Jarvis where you were. You and Loki climbed in your cute little four door Audi.

    Loki gave you directions out of the city and refused to say where you were going.

    The first stop of the morning was to feed the hungry Asgardian. You would have admitted you were hungry too, but Loki, and Thor even more so, were bottomless pits when it came to food.

    One of Loki’s absolute favorite places was the Pancake House. They had unlimited pancakes, which Loki considered almost a dessert. It was a dessert he could eat for breakfast. He also had way too much fun ordering as many pancakes as they would give him and eating them all. He didn’t look like he should be able to hold that many pancakes. You sat with him, eating a reasonable number of pancakes while he devoured his unlimited stack with glee. Once you had finished yours, you scrolled through your social media channels on your phone, reading out the best comments on your picture of you kissing Loki to him, making him laugh.

    So you posted the picture of you kissing him while he wore his helmet. Then you logged into Facebook to make the relationship official. His phone dinged from his pocket. He pulled it out to look at the notification, curiously. You briefly explained how relationships weren’t considered ‘official’ until they were on Facebook. He chuckled and pressed the button to accept the change.

    Your social media blew up after that and you continued to enjoy reading the best comments and stories to him. You didn’t read the comments aloud which called Loki an asshole for trying to take over the Earth. Those would just make your Loki sad. The Loki gleefully eating pancakes was much better than sad Loki.

    *

    You drove for a long while longer until you pulled into the parking lot of a huge amusement park well outside of the city. “Ta-da!” Loki announced, proud of his plan. With a name like ‘amusement park’ the place had to be fun in his mind.

    You laughed. This was going to be fun. He’d had yet to go to an amusement park since he’d been on Earth. This would be fun indeed. You’d been to this park at least once a summer since you lived with Tony, so you knew it fairly well and knew exactly where the first stop should be.

    After you made it through the front gates, you took Loki’s hand more firmly and led him to the back of the park where your favorite roller coaster was. He laughed and let you drag him while he looked around the park in awe at all of the fun to be had here. The line for the coaster wasn’t long yet, but you still distracted Loki with kisses while you waited. It was hard to see the ride from the line, and you wanted to surprise him with what a roller coaster was. You opened your purse when you got near the front of the line and held it out for him. “Phone,” you told him, dumping yours in the purse too. He raised an eyebrow, but obediently put his phone in your purse. “You don’t want to lose it,” you explained vaguely.

    The two of you climbed into the rollercoaster car and you briefly explained the seat belt and lap bar while you put yours on quickly. He grumbled about fragile humans, but obediently fastened all of the safety devices. “Don’t stab the guy who checks the lap bar,” you warned him as the ride operators started down the car to check. “It’s their job,”

    “Fine, I will not stab the people who work here,” he mock-pouted. You watched him as the ride started, more entertained by what his reactions would be. He didn’t know what was going on and it was adorable.

    You turned your attention back to the ride at the top of the hill. You screamed in delight when the coaster started down the hill, shrieking as you felt your stomach drop. You laughed at Loki’s shocked and nearly horrified expression, but he was soon laughing and enjoying the ride. You knew this ride well and knew how to lean into the turns to get as few bruises as possible. It was an old wooden roller coaster.

    You and Loki were both laughing at the combination of the ride and the terrible state of both of your hair. You tied yours back quickly and offered him a hair-tie. He hesitated, so used to having his shoulder-length hair loose. You weren’t sure if he’d ever tied it back before. You sighed and sat him down on a nearby bench so you could tie his hair for him.

    You rode every coaster in the park with him as well as all of the other rides. He loved them all. You then taught him about the arcade games that could be played for prizes, namely stuffed animals. You briefly explained the tradition of the gentleman trying to win a prize for his lady. “Using magic is cheating,” you reminded him when he wanted to try one, excited over the idea of winning the prize for you. He pouted, but agreed that he wouldn’t cheat. He still managed to win you an adorable stuffed animal.

    *

    It was late when you two left the park. There was still one more adventure for the evening. He took you to a fancy restaurant in the middle of town, though he used magic to change his outfit to a suit before you entered the restaurant. “Cheater,” you grumbled, making him laugh. He got out of the car first and came around to open your car door. You wondered briefly how he’d learned dating customs, but didn’t focus on it at the moment. Instead you let him escort you into the restaurant. He gave his name for the reservations. The hostess looked shocked to not only find that she had a reservation in the name ‘Loki Laufeyson’ but that it wasn’t a joke. Loki pulled out your chair for you and seated you at the table.

    It was a lovely dinner of delicious food and conversation about the books you were reading. You also talked about your pet project in the lab and he gave some suggestions based off of the schematics he looked over. You must’ve looked shocked that he would make suggestions. “We have pretty sophisticated technologies on Asgard as well,” he reminded you. “It’s not my specialty, but I have studied them to some extent,”

    “You do realize by telling me that, that you’ve resigned yourself to helping me in the lab, right?” you teased.

    “Between that and teaching you Asgardian, I am truly doomed,” he mock-whined.

    *

    “Was this worth dealing with me studying all week?” you asked him that night while he picked out a movie for the two of you to watch. You were both in pajamas. He handed you the movie he chose and you set it up on Tony’s giant TV. You curled up with him on the couch and he wrapped a blanket around you. His body tended to run cool and he didn’t want you to get cold cuddling with him.

    “It was quite enjoyable,” Loki said softly and kissed the top of your head. “Did you have fun?” he asked.

    “Of course,” you replied. You curled up more comfortably against him, not paying much attention to the movie. It was a long exciting day, outside for most of it, which was extra draining, since you never spent much time outside. On top of only three hours of sleep the previous night and a super stressful week, you didn’t make it all the way through the movie.

    You stirred ever so slightly when you felt cool muscled arms lifting you from the couch. You made a small questioning noise, mostly asleep. “Shh, darling,” Loki whispered, soothing you cradling you to his chest. You were briefly aware of being tucked into your bed and a kiss on your forehead. “Sleep well, my darling,” he bid you softly, his voice warm and loving.


	5. Chapter 5

    You were already in your lab working when Loki found you the next morning. “Did you eat?” he asked accusingly when he came into the lab. You had the giant pot of coffee next to where you were working, but no food that he could see.

    “I’ve eaten,” you replied. You could nearly hear him roll his eyes.

    “Have you eaten since dinner last night?” he clarified his question. You laughed and finally looked away from your work.

    “Does coffee count?” you asked.

    “No, love. Coffee does not in fact count as a food. Come on, food, then I’ll help you with the power supply problem,”

    “Give me a sec to finish this so it doesn’t blow up,” you said, turning back to concentrate on the piece your were working on. He sighed heavily and pulled you in your rolly-chair away from the table.

    “Now, darling,” he told you firmly. You glared up at him. He laughed and threw you over his shoulder.

    “Loki!” you shrieked and smacked his back. He laughed and started swiftly from the room. “If that blows up, I’m going to be mad at you,” you warned him.

    “I expect nothing less,” he replied with a smile in his voice. You huffed and grumped at him, but he didn’t put you down until set you on your usual chair in the dining room. A plate of eggs and sausage appeared in front of you courtesy of Nat.

    “You’re just like your dad,” she laughed. “Neither of you remember to eat or sleep until someone reminds you how long it’s been since the last time you did either activity.” You laughed in reply.

    “I had to reprogram Jarvis to shut down all of his machines if he tried to go more than three days without doing those activities,” you reminded her with a reminiscing smile. “He’s gotten better,”

    “You’ve gotten worse,” Nat retorted. “Don’t forget, it’s girls’ night, so you have to leave your lab this evening.” You nodded in reply. “Sorry, Loki, you’re not a girl. You’ll have to entertain yourself,” Nat teased.

    “Are you certain of that?” Loki asked pleasantly. With a flash of green magic, Loki _was_ a girl. Nat laughed and you giggled, though Loki was equally attractive as a female. You forgot that he was capable of shapeshifting. He didn’t use the skill much around here.

    “Fine, Lady Loki can come,” Nat relented.

    “Yay!” Loki exclaimed, taking a plate of breakfast from Nat and sitting next to you. “Eat, Y/N,” she bid you. You’d forgotten about eating in the excitement. Loki shifted back to male and you two ate breakfast quickly. Loki helped you wash the dishes. He didn’t enjoy the chore anymore than you did, but you splashed him with soapy water and you were silly about it. You’d explained how it was fair to clean up, since Nat had made you two breakfast, so he didn’t complain too much about helping.

    *

    You spent the rest of the day with Loki in your lab. He knew a lot more about technologies than he had let on and you both poured over your design schematics all afternoon. Between the two of you, you got the power-supply issue resolved, plus some. That led to you scrapping the original project and starting on about ten new ideas while Jarvis made quite a few of the power supplies for you. You’d asked Karen to ask Jarvis to make the power supplies. You’d found out that Tony kept a record of what you asked Jarvis to do, especially things in the lab, but he hadn’t thought to keep track of what you had Karen ask Jarvis to do. You were exploiting that fact for as long as you could.

    Loki sat quietly reading while you assembled the final pieces. He wasn’t good at this part and decided staying out of the way was safer than getting burned or worse by attempting to help. You slipped the metal bangles on your wrists when they were assembled, a huge grin on your face. “Might want to stay back,” you warned Loki when you moved away from your lab table and closer to Dum-dum (Dum-e’s little brother) so you could test them out. Loki looked up, but stayed where he was, hopefully out of danger. You saw the change in his demeanor and knew he was prepared to protect himself if something went wrong.

    You hit a side button on the bangles at the same time and both transformed into repulsor gloves, similar to Tony’s ironman gloves, but thinner. The gauntlets went up nearly to your elbows. You grinned that this part had worked. With a practiced move from trying out one of Tony’s suits, which he didn’t know about, or at least you really hoped he still didn’t know about, you fired off one of the repulsors. He wouldn’t be pleased if he found out. You fired it off a few more times and Karen informed you the power was still at 100%. The mini arc reactors would continually recharge themselves for at least a year. You grinned that it was working so well.

    “Congratulations!” Loki called from where he was sitting. He was watching the show, proud of your accomplishment. You then did something incredibly stupid, pointing both repulsors at the ground like you had watched Tony do thousands of times. You used them both at the same time, trying to fly. At least you got off the ground. Unfortunately, you got off of the ground too quickly and hit the ceiling hard before you could make the correction. “Y/N!” Loki exclaimed, running over as you crashed back to the floor.

    “Ow,” you grumbled, dazed and in pain. “Dad’s going to be pissed that I’m bleeding. Again.” Loki was looking over your head where you’d smashed it into the ceiling. He was already holding a cloth to your head to stem the bleeding.

    He hesitated, but sighed and finally said. “I can fix this,” he said, but his voice was still hesitant.

    “You don’t have to, the idea is making you uncomfortable,” you told him. “A band-aid will do just fine,” you told him with a smile.

    He rolled his eyes. “This would require stitches, not a band-aid.” He said dryly. “And it’s not that... healing is not one of my usual gifts. I can heal this, but I would...appreciate...if you would stay with me afterwards so I can recover from using that much magic,” he said softly. You rarely if ever heard him say anything that would show a sign of weakness. It was a testament to how much he liked and trusted you that he was saying something now.

    You nodded. “We can go upstairs and watch a movie. I’m done playing with these for the day anyway,” you told him with a smile. You pressed the buttons on the gauntlets and they turned back into bangle bracelets on your wrists. Loki relaxed and called his magic, healing the deep cut on your head. You saw instantly how much it drained him. He sagged against you sleepily. You smiled softly at him and kissed his forehead. “Thank you,” you told him gently.

    It took effort, but you got to your feet and helped pull him to his, wrapping one of his arms over your shoulders and holding him by the waist to keep him on his feet. “I can’t carry you,” you reminded him when he complained about getting to his feet. “Karen, lock the lab,” you ordered the AI as you and Loki left your lab. The lock wouldn’t keep Tony or Pepper out, but it would keep everyone else from messing with your stuff.

    You settled Loki on the couch, quickly set up a movie, and sat on the couch with him. He laid his head in your lap and you spent the movie running your fingers through his hair. He relaxed into a melty purring puddle the second you started running your fingers through his hair and was asleep almost instantly. You made a mental note that his third weakness was having his hair brushed.

    *

    He was looking much better a few hours later when the girls started arriving for girls’ night. He sat up when they started arriving, not wanting the rest of the team to catch him weakened after healing you. “Brother, we are going out for a male bonding night!” Thor announced loudly. “The females are taking over the tower tonight! You should join us!”

    Loki shifted to female in reply. “I am staying here. Natasha invited me,” Lady Loki replied.

    “Very well, Sister,” Thor replied, as though Loki’s shift to female didn’t surprised him in the least. “Enjoy your evening, ladies,” Thor bid you all. The men escaped from the tower as fast as they could.

    They didn’t know that while you did all paint your nails, you also got self defense lessons from Nat and watched action movies. As per tradition, you all stayed up way too late watching movies, discussing the stupid boys who lived with you, telling stories, and just enjoying a male-free night. Loki enjoyed being accepted by the women as one of your own and had so much fun learning how to paint her nails. You were all hanging out in a pillow-pile in the middle of the livingroom, that’s where you all fell asleep, and where the guys found you at 3 in the morning when they returned from their night out.

    They tiptoed loudly through the livingroom, careful not to step on any of the women. You woke just enough to notice that Tony was tucking a blanket around Pepper. Clint was doing the same for Nat. Thor covered you and Loki with a single blanket, since you were curled up together in the pillow pile. Tony wasn’t happy, but didn’t say anything, since Loki was currently a woman, and obviously nothing had happened.


	6. Chapter 6

    You cursed the next morning when your alarm went off. You slammed it off again, but relaxed quickly when you found yourself in a pillow pile with the other ladies of the Avengers. You had all fallen asleep in the livingroom. You slipped out of the pile of pillows and rushed upstairs to get ready for school. A quick wardrobe change into a clean pair of jeans and t-shirt and you were back downstairs. You slipped past the sleeping women, much more quietly than the boys had done at 3am.

    You hesitated at the elevator. Loki was still asleep. You weren’t supposed to leave without a guard. Too many people were stupid about the idea of capturing ‘Tony’s little princess’ for ransom money or weapons or something stupid like that. But you could protect yourself and didn’t want to wake Loki, who was sleeping so peacefully, so you slipped into the elevator and headed off to school alone.

    It was strange not to have Loki with you. He was your usual companion nearly all of the time. You walked quickly to school, ready for the next few days to be over. AP exams were always the week before classes ended. The last few days of school were mandatory, though, or you would’ve just skipped them.

    -Where are you?- came Loki’s worried text right before your first class of the day was supposed to start.

    -School. Class is starting.- you put your phone away before the teacher could yell at you for it. You didn’t know why she cared today. This was one of your AP classes and literally the only thing you were doing in this class this week was watching movies.

    All anyone wanted to talk to you about all day was your relationship with Loki. It was to be expected since you had broadcasted it on social media, but it was a little annoying. You sat with Peter at lunch that day to talk about his suit, or really anything besides your boyfriend. He was glad to oblige. He told you about his superheroing and you told him about the bangle-gauntlets you’d created. You even showed him how they transformed while the teachers weren’t looking. He was properly impressed.

    *

    You weren’t surprised to see Loki when you left school that day. You weren’t _really_ surprised to see how pissed he was either. You _were_ surprised when he didn’t greet you. Instead he glanced you over to make sure you weren’t harmed, then threw you over his shoulder, vanishing your bag and books as he did.

    “Loki!” You shrieked indignantly.

    “Do you know how worried I was?” he asked, fear softening his anger some. But only some. He was so pissed.

    “I didn’t want to wake you, not when I can walk a mile or so by myself,” you told him, trying to ignore the comments from your classmates at the sight of you being carried by your boyfriend over his shoulder.

    “It’s my job to protect you,” he protested, settling you more securely over his shoulder. “You should have woken me,”

    You rolled your eyes and huffed at him. “I can protect myself. I’ve been telling Dad for years that I don’t need a guard or babysitter,” you grumbled at him.

    “You have let me guard you for a year,” Loki replied.

    “I’ve let my friend spend time with me. Just because my friend, now my boyfriend, happens to have super human strength and magic was irrelevant,” you retorted grumpily. “You were asleep,” you reminded him again. “If _you_ are actually asleep, then you needed the sleep,” he seemed to sleep so seldomly that you never wanted to wake him if you caught him at it. “I was being considerate and letting you sleep,”

    He huffed and held your legs more securely to his chest. “If I apologize will you put me down?” you asked when it seemed like he was going to carry you all the way home over his shoulder.

    “Maybe,” he replied, softening a little.

    “I’m very sorry I worried you and I promise next time I’ll wake you,” you told him quickly. He chuckled and set you gently back on your feet.

    He still wrapped his arms too tightly around you. “I was so worried,” he told you softly and kissed the top of your head.

    “I’m fine, Loki,” you told him gently. You leaned up to give him a kiss. “I’m fine, perfectly safe. It was just a walk to school,” you reminded him.

    “Stark had to have put a guard on you for a reason,” Loki replied logically as you finally got him to continue the walk back home. You rolled your eyes.

    “Dad thinks there will be kidnapping attempts because of who he is,” you replied grumpily.

    “I feel better knowing you are safe regardless,” Loki said and kissed the top of your head again as you walked.

    “So now you’re going to teach me self-defense and Asgardian?” you asked with a laugh.

    “That, my darling, is an excellent idea,” he replied with a grin.

    *

    Somehow he convinced you to spend that afternoon with him learning more hand-to-hand combat in one of the training rooms. You weren’t quite sure how that happened. You did greatly appreciate that he was shirtless during this activity. You knew some tricks from working with Nat, but Loki was a proficient fighter too and a great teacher.

    You were delighted when he let you move on from bare handed combat to working with daggers. They were his weapon of choice, but he said they’d be a good fit for you based on your body type and fighting style.

    “What are you doing?” Tony demanded angrily from the doorway. You both had to scramble in a couple awkward movements to keep you from getting sliced open when you looked at Tony instead of Loki who was currently attacking you.

    “Stark! Don’t you know not to interrupt weapons training without warning? Especially when your daughter is training with someone with the strength and speed of a god?” Loki cursed while he helped you back to your feet. You had fallen on your ass instead of getting sliced open by a dagger. You gripped his arm and let him haul you back to your feet. “Are you ok, Y/N?” Loki asked, looking you over for injuries before he turned his attention back to Tony.

    “I’m fine,” you told him gently.

    “What is going on?” Tony demanded again.

    “Loki offered to teach me self-defense,” you explained. “Nat taught me a bunch of stuff already, so we were working on weapons instead of bare hand,”

    “I don’t want you learning to fight,” Tony grumbled. You rolled your eyes in reply.

    “Dad, you’re always worried about my safety. Don’t you think it’s better if I know how to protect myself, at least until one of the superheros can arrive?” you asked overly logically. You handed the dagger to Loki and went to Tony.

    “Just be careful, and don’t get any ideas about becoming an Avenger. I don’t want this life for you,” Tony finally replied, softening. You kissed his cheek.

    “I’ll be careful, Dad,” you replied with a grin. He sighed and rolled his eyes.

    “Sure you will... Make sure she’s careful, reindeer games,” Tony told Loki instead. He offered an elegant bow.

    “Always,” Loki replied.

    *

    “Miss, Peter is calling for you,” Karen’s voice came from your phone, while you were brushing Loki’s hair out that evening. You were sitting on the couch watching TV and he was sitting on the floor in front of you, purring contentedly while you worked.

    “Hey, Pete,” you answered the phone. Loki made a pouty whiny noise at you when you momentarily stopped brushing his hair. You rolled your eyes at him, but cradled the phone between your ear and shoulder and got back to work on his hair.

    “Hey, Y/N. Aunt May’s having that casserole you like for dinner tomorrow if you and Loki want to come over,” Peter offered.

    “Great! Dinner’s at 6, right?” you asked, though you already knew the answer.

    “Yep,”

    “Karen’s not giving you any more trouble, is she?” you asked.

    “No, not since you fixed her.”

    “Great! I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” you told him and hung up. “We’re having dinner with Peter and his Aunt May tomorrow. You were invited too,” you told Loki. He looked up, shock on his face.

    “I was invited?” he asked softly. You nodded.

    “Pete invited you specifically,” you told him kindly. He grinned. “That means that you can’t stab him, or Aunt May. You have to be nice to them. And polite to Aunt May,”

    “I know how to be polite,” he replied grumpily.

    “You can’t say you don’t like the food,” you reminded him anyway. “Aunt May also doesn’t know that Peter is Spiderman. She thinks he’s doing an internship for Dad,”

    “I will be polite to Aunt May and not give the spider’s secret away,” Loki said, still pouting. “Don’t fret, darling. I can behave among the humans,”

    “Good,” you leaned down and kissed him before getting back to work brushing, then braiding, his hair. He didn’t mind at all that you braided it, and was just a purring happy Loki while you paid attention to him.


	7. Chapter 7

    You were still nervous as you walked up the steps to Peter’s front door. “Best behavior, Loki,” you warned him. Again. “This is important,” you reminded him when he rolled his eyes. Again.

    “I am aware this is important. I am aware that I must behave and be nice to the mortals. I cannot stab anyone and I must be polite and I cannot give away the spider’s secret,” he sounded petulant and grumpy.

    “I’m sorry,” you told him softly. You felt bad for harping. You leaned up and kissed his cheek. “You don’t always get along the best with mortals who bore you, and Aunt May isn’t interesting. She feeds us and is really nice, but she’s boring and human,”

    “It will be interesting to see a normal family dinner,” he replied.

    “If you can behave tonight, I’ll surprise you with something fun to do Friday,” you promised him. His expression changed to child-like glee.

    “What fun will that be? Don’t you have school?”

    “You’ll find out, but tonight has to go well,” you told him, not feeling badly at all for bribing him to be on his best behavior.

    “We have a deal,” he replied with a grin. With that settled, you knocked on Peter’s door. Aunt May answered almost immediately.

    “Y/N, welcome!” she exclaimed and gave you a hug. You hugged her back.

    “Hi Aunt May. Thanks for inviting me over for dinner,” you told her with a real smile. “Dad’s busy tonight with the company, so it was really good timing,”

    “You’re welcome anytime,” she told you and stepped back from the door to let you in. She looked over Loki curiously.

    “Aunt May, this is my boyfriend Loki Odinson,” Loki really went by Laufeyson, but he had agreed to the change for the sake of the evening. Thor was well-known, liked, and popular. Acknowledging the family connection could only be a good thing when introducing Loki to humans who only knew him from the events in New York. “Loki, this is Peter’s Aunt, May Parker,” you completed the introductions quickly.

    “Thank you for inviting me, Mrs. Parker,” Loki said with the elegant politeness he was so good at. It was a side you actually didn’t see very often from him anymore. You saw the fun silly side he didn’t show anyone else instead. From behind his back he presented her with a bouquet of roses.

    “How thoughtful!” she exclaimed accepting the flowers. “Dinner’s just about ready. Peter’s in his room if you want to say hi before dinner,”

    “Thanks, Aunt May,” you waved and led Loki up to Peter’s room. It was no surprise that he actually wasn’t in there. You pulled your phone out and called him. “Where are you?” you demanded when he answered.

    “Almost there! Sorry, I got tied up with a robber across town. Stall for me?” Peter demanded frantically.

    “Fine. Just hurry!” you huffed at him and hung up the phone. You turned to Loki. “You can shapeshift, can you throw your voice too?” you asked him, coming up with a quick plan.

    “Throw what?” he asked, raising an eyebrow in amused confusion.

    “Can you make your voice sound like Peter’s?” he nodded. You sighed in relief. “Stay up here, wait for Peter, make it sound like you’re talking with him or playing video games with him or something. We need to stall for him until he can get here,”

    “Very well. What will you be doing?”

    “‘Helping’ Aunt May make dinner and set the table by getting in the way as much as possible,” you told him. He nodded again, accepting your plan and your mischief for the purpose of keeping Peter’s secret. “Thank you!” You kissed him quickly and went downstairs to distract Aunt May.

    “Is something wrong?” Aunt May asked. You shook your head with an exasperated smile.

    “No... you know boys. The second you get two of them together they dive into their video games and don’t pay attention to anything else,” you huffed. “I thought you could use a hand with dinner,” you offered her with the innocent smile you’d perfected for use on Tony. It worked great on adults. So did your act of helping when you were really in the way.

    Loki and Peter trampled down the stairs about ten minutes later and suddenly the table was set and dinner was on the table. Loki pulled out Aunt May’s chair for her and then yours for you. “Such a gentleman,” she commented, giving Peter a pointed look.

    “You’re my Aunt,” Peter grumbled sourly, making all of us laugh. You grabbed a roll off of the plate next to you and then passed it to Loki.

    “Take one and pass the plate to Pete,” you told him softly. You gave a small apologetic smile to Aunt May. “Sorry, Aunt May. Loki’s from...out of town and hasn’t been to a real sit-down dinner before. You know Dad usually feeds everyone takeout...”

    She nodded. “It’s not problem,” she replied, though looked a bit confused on just how far ‘out of town’ Loki was from. She had to know, but probably just hadn’t consciously put two and two together. You talked about your classes with Aunt May and Peter and what APs you had signed up for next year (all of them you could. Loki was going to be _so_ thrilled come next year’s AP season). Peter bragged about his ‘internship’. When you heard about it, and about Peter’s financial situation, you made sure Tony made the ‘internship’ a paid position. It helped Peter out so much and you knew how grateful he was, though you never told him that you were the one who made the ‘internship’ paid. Loki briefly discussed how he works with the Avengers, but tried not to answer too many questions about it.

    “Y/N, please tell me you decided to come to the party Friday night,” Peter begged. It was a dick move calling you out in front of Aunt May, like that. He cornered you into agreeing, especially when Aunt May cornered you too and together they ended up getting you to agree to go.

    You changed the subject as soon as you could to getting Aunt May to tell embarrassing stories of Peter, which was fun and you reciprocated with embarrassing stories of the Avengers. Loki even told a couple of Thor from when they were children.

    You and Loki both helped Aunt May clean up dinner and do the dishes. Loki didn’t even complain about doing the chores the mortal way, which was extremely impressive for him.

    “So what are we doing Friday?” Loki asked after you had said your goodbyes and left Peter’s house. You stuck your tongue out at him.

    “You’ll find out on Friday,” you replied with a grin. “Though we’ll need some magic for it. And for you to _not_ tell my dad,”

    “This sounds like a better and better plan all the time,”

    *

    Friday morning came around and you and Loki walked to school as usual. Loki was carrying half of your heavy textbooks for you, since today was the last day of classes, so you had to turn them all in today.

    “So what are we doing for fun?” Loki pouted at you. He’d been annoying you since Tuesday to tell him what your plans were. You grinned.

    “You’re spending the day at school with me,” you told him.

    “That sounds boring,” he grumbled and pouted, pausing a step.

    “On normal days it would be,” you agreed, grabbing his hand to pull him along. “Today, however, will be fun. Trust me,”

    “You said we needed magic for this plan?”

    “You need to look more like a high schooler,” you reminded him. He didn’t exactly fit in.

    “But by lifespan equivalencies-” he started to protest. You rolled your eyes.

    “Teenagers don’t look so damn hot, but I don’t really want to change that,” you grinned at him. He inclined his head regally, accepting the compliment. You did tie his hair back in a man bun and convince him to use magic to wear something less formal and more teenage-y. He also used some kind of spell where everyone else would see a generic student instead of Loki, except when you were kissing him. He couldn’t stand the thought of people thinking anyone but him was kissing you.

    When you reached the school, Loki just stared at the roof. “Why are there picnic tables up on the roof?” he asked, concerned, and amused.

    “Those usually live in the outdoor eating area. Today is senior prank day,” you told him with a grin. His eyes lit up.

    “What is senior prank day?” he asked, all excited-puppy curiosity.

    “It’s a tradition on the last day of school the Seniors, the students who graduate this year, play pranks on the school, since unless they do something really illegal, they can’t get in trouble for anything they do,”

    The school was chaos the entire day. It was sometimes hard to tell which pranks came from the seniors and which came from Loki. The traditional pranks, like the principal’s car being in the empty swimming pool, the three pigs loose in the school labelled 1, 2, and 4, and the cow on the third floor of the building seemed like they belonged to the actual seniors. The water in the other swimming pool being replaced with cherry cola, the hallway completely filled with bubbles, and all of the statues suddenly being in lewd poses were probably Loki’s doing. The mariachi band that followed the principal around all day was a toss-up. The choir kids barracading themselves in the choir room using a barracade that looked remarkably like the one from Les Mis while singing “Do You Hear the People Sing” was probably a joint effort.

    Loki gave high-fives to all of the seniors he saw in the hallways. They were easily identified by their senior t-shirts. Those he saw pulling pranks he let see the real him, wearing his golden horned helmet so they would be absolutely sure who he was. The pranksters all gave him bows and salutes when they saw the real him.

    At lunch that day, all of the seniors congregated around the giant Christmas tree they had set up in the middle of the cafeteria. They all circled around it, holding hands and singing the Who song from How the Grinch Stole Christmas, to the applause of the lowerclassmen.

    Toward the end of lunch, Loki stood on the small raised platform at the front of the room. “May I have your attention?” he asked the crowd of students. All of the singing seniors stopped and turned to look toward the stage. All eyes in the room turned to him. You were standing just off stage, wondering what Loki was up to. On a hunch, you pulled out your phone and started recording.

    He dropped his illusion, appearing in front of the room in his battle costume, horned helmet included. The room burst into applause as he spread his arms wide. The applause were loudest from the seniors. “I am Loki of Asgard!” he announced when the cheers died down some, joy on his face at the attention and fun he was having here. “Your pranks on this day have pleased me immensely. My regards to the Senior class!”

    As one all of the seniors dropped to their knees and bowed down before the god of mischief and chaos while the rest of the crowd roared in applause.


	8. Chapter 8

    Before the cheers had died down completely, a girl stood up on one of the tables. You recognized her as a Junior, one of the drama kids. She was the lead in every play and musical the school put on. “Loki of Asgard, I am Jemma, spokeswoman of the Junior class.” You recognized the name with the face, now that she had spoken it. She was also in the running to be valedictorian. No wonder she had been chosen as spokesperson.

    “Next year’s Seniors,” you supplied Loki quickly as he turned to glance at you for the explanation. He nodded and turned back to Jemma, obviously curious as to what she wanted. It was brave of her to seek out the attention of the god of chaos, especially since people hadn’t forgotten that he’d tried to take over the world.

    “The Junior class has accepted the challenge. Next year, we will show you an even more impressive display of pranks!” she announced. Her voice was strong, well practiced from three years on the stage. The Juniors all roared their agreement. The challenge had been accepted by every single one of them.

    Loki grinned his trademark Cheshire cat grin. He then held one finger to his lips and the crowd silenced at once. “I look forward to your demonstration, Jemma of the Junior class,” he announced and offered her an elegant formal bow.

    You made a quick decision and joined Loki on the stage. He looked over at you, curious what you were up to. You leaned up and whispered in his ear. He inclined his head in reply to your query. He was keeping up his more formal demeanor in front of the students during his shenanigans on the stage. You turned to the crowd of your classmates and steeled yourself to say what you’d gotten up here to. It was hard to speak in front of all of these people, but you managed. “If the Seniors would open your yearbooks to page three, Loki would like to show his appreciation for the pranks you impressed him with today.” Due to some printing error, page three of the yearbooks was blank. It was also made of some super glossy material that couldn’t be written on, so no one had used it for signatures. It was perfect for this purpose. All of the seniors did as they were told. You nodded to Loki when they were all ready. With a flash of green magic, an inscription appeared in every Senior’s yearbook in magical green ink with Loki’s signature at the bottom. You didn’t ask what he was going to write, but whatever it was impressed the Seniors.

    The Seniors all bowed again when they saw what he had done. It was a gesture they would be able to treasure.

    *

    Loki’s spectacle at lunch and his pranks throughout the day were the stuff of school legend before the next class had even begun, even before the videos started appearing on youtube. Yours was the first video posted, of course, but there were plenty of others.

    Loki didn’t bother with his illusion after his appearance at lunch. The crowds of students parted in front of him as he walked you to your final classes. He was extremely easy to spot with his golden horned helmet. The Seniors especially all bowed to him as you passed them. Loki was so pleased and obviously having the time of his life. You were glad you’d thought to bring him to school today for this.

    The day was perfect until the announcement five minutes before the last class of the day ended. “Senior Prank Day has officially ended,” came the principal’s voice over the PA system. There were groans from everyone in the school. It sounded like the entire building moaned. They had all had too much fun today, including the teachers, though they’d never admit it. “Loki of Asgard, kindly return the school to the way your found it this morning, especially if you would like to return on next year’s Senior Prank Day. I would also appreciate it if you would remove my car from the swimming pool and return it to its assigned spot. It is quite the pain to get it out of the pool myself.” At least the principal sounded amused. He was also giving Loki and invite to next year’s festivities. He couldn’t be too upset if he was inviting Loki back. The invite would be revoked, though, if Loki didn’t help clean up the mess he’d made.

    Loki gave you his patented ‘do I have to?’ look. You rolled your eyes at him. “Yes, you have to put it back. He asked nicely and even invited you back next year. You got to play all day, it’s time to clean up the mess you helped make,” you told him. He sighed heavily and overly dramatically. The entire class stared as he held his hands in front of him, drawing a lot of magic for this spell. You could see it gathering as a green glowing orb in his hands. He unleashed the spell and magic washed over the school, returning everything to mostly normal. He’d gone overboard, however, and the entire school was sparkling clean, probably cleaner than it had been since the day it had been completed. The principal’s car was back in its spot, looking freshly washed and waxed.

    “Thank you, Loki,” came the principal’s voice. “The Senior class wishes for me to convey their appreciation for you contributions to their pranks today”

    Loki’s look of pride and joy at their praise warmed your heart.


	9. Chapter 9

    “So what are we doing fun tonight?” Loki asked on your walk home from school that afternoon. He was still wearing his battle costume. He had had so much fun today that he hadn’t wanted to take it off and return to human clothes. You didn’t feel like bursting his bubble and making him. Besides, he wasn’t hurting anything by being in costume.

    “I’m going to a party tonight, remember?” you asked him. “Aunt May and Peter conned me into going. Happy’s driving. We’re picking up Peter on the way,” you added. He seemed to have forgotten the plans. “And no, you’re not going. You have to entertain yourself tonight. Besides, Dad said he wanted you to help with a mission. Or a project in his lab or something.” Loki pouted anyway.

    “Spending time with you sounds much more enjoyable,” Loki whined.

    “Of course spending time with your girlfriend is more enjoyable than spending time with her dad,” you replied with a grin. “But this is an actual high schooler party. You weren’t invited. Plus Dad needs you,” you reminded him. Again. He pouted, but agreed. He wouldn’t stand in the way of you living as normal of a life as you could manage.

    “I’ll try to get out of it as fast as possible,” you promised. You didn’t really want to go to this party. You were going because you’d been cornered into it. “Besides, you’ll be busy all night answering your fanmail,” you laughed and stuck your tongue out at him. His phone had been going off the entire walk home. He was getting so many friend requests and kids all over the country were sending him pranks to review and sending him videos of the senior pranks they had pulled this year. His spectacle today had become a nationwide legend.

    *

    “Why did you take Loki to school with you?” Tony demanded when you got back to the tower.

    “It was fun?” you replied with a grin. “Dad, it got us good press. He went, had fun, and improved the school with magic. He’s actually invited back next year for Senior Prank Day.” Tony grumbled, but couldn’t argue with your logic. Plus you’d been guarded all day and hadn’t complained about it.

    “Fine,” Tony finally grumbled. “What are you up to tonight? Working in your lab again?”

    You shook your head. “I’ve got that end of school party. Happy’s driving me and Peter to it. I think Peter wants to show off your ‘internship’ to look cooler,” you rolled your eyes at that. Tony laughed.

    “Maybe I can do a fly over for him,” he mused. You rolled your eyes again. Stupid immature boys. They never grew up.

    “Mario Kart or Smash Bros?” you asked Loki instead. Video games were much more mature...

    *

    “I never thought I’d say this to my teenage daughter, but will you please go change your clothes to look like a teenage girl?” Tony demanded when you tried to leave for the party in your favorite jeans and a Black Sabbath t-shirt that was technically his. You looked down at your outfit.

    “What? Teenagers wear jeans and t-shirts, dad,” you protested.

    “Not to a party, they don’t. You won’t have friends if you don’t _try_ to fit in,” he reminded you, doing the worried dad thing. You rolled your eyes.

    “Fine...” you stomped upstairs to go find a dress to wear. You ended up with a halter dress that went down to your knees and strappy sandals. It was nothing like your usual t-shirt and jeans, or the old grungy clothes you wore in the lab where the explosions happened. It was way more revealing and uncomfortable. “Better?” you demanded of Tony when you got back downstairs. He looked like he was second guessing his decision to tell you to change.

    Loki looked jealous that the teenage boys were going to spend an evening with you in a dress and he was not. You grinned at him. Making him a little jealous was ok. You gave him a kiss goodbye. “I’ll be back soon,” you promised.

    “Be safe,” he bid you. You held up your wrists. You were wearing the repulsor bracelets you’d made on them.

    “I’m armed. I’ll be fine,” you promised. He gave you one of his jackets to take with you. You smiled at his courtesy. He gave you another kiss before letting you leave with Happy.

    *

    Peter was a ball of excitement when you picked him up. He was dressed nicely too, not in his usual t-shirt either. “Do you think Gwen will be there?” he asked in the middle of his babbling.

    “No idea. She didn’t say one way or the other.” Gwen was one of the science geeks too and hung out with you occasionally when your projects overlapped. Her specialty was more chemistry based, while your were more on the engineering side. Peter was in the middle, so you were mostly friends through him.

    Peter was also excited that you were being dropped off for the party in one of Tony’s super fancy cars. He let Happy drive it tonight for you to impress the other students. Happy opened your car door for you and you stepped out, well used to the action from chauffeurs by now. Years of living with Tony had taught you a lot about rich culture.

    The party was huge and loud. You wanted to turn around right that second, but you’d promised Peter and Aunt May, so you entered the stupid loud party and pretended that you actually wanted to be there.

    You didn’t.

    People noticed you the second you came in. You noticed the looks, but you were used to attention too. Everyone knew who your dad was. Everyone also knew who your boyfriend was. You figured they wouldn’t be as actively flirting as they were.

    It was annoying actually, especially since you were already taken.

    You ended up finding Gwen and you, she, and Peter found a relatively quiet corner to sip on your pop in red solo cups and chat about your various projects. Peter’s computer friend came over at one point. So did a couple of guys who looked too old to be at a high school party. They must’ve been the ones who brought the booze. They tried flirting extra hard with you and Gwen. You both rejected their advances.

    Peter grabbed all three of your cups. “Cokes, right?” he asked. Rule number one of a party was to never let your drink out of your sight, but Peter wouldn’t do anything. He was a superhero after all. You nodded, so did Gwen, though she looked more wary.

    “He’s an intern for my dad. He’s not going to do anything to our drinks,” you reminded her when he’d left with the cups. “Plus he’s a good guy,”

    “Right, I forgot he got the Stark internship. What does he even do for that?” Gwen asked curiously. You shrugged.

    “No idea. Sometimes he helps me with my project when dad doesn’t have anything for him to do. He probably has to do a bunch of boring paperwork. Dad _hates_ paperwork,” you grinned and returned to your conversation. You took your cup back from Peter when he returned and gave him a thanks. He and Gwen were starting to hit it off, it seemed. You smiled and watched them, sipping on coke and watching the stupid flirting teenagers around you trying to dance to awful music. You wondered again why they thought this was fun. You’d much rather be at home with you lab, books, or video games.

    It wasn’t long after that you began to feel tired, woozy, dizzy, almost... drunk, though you’d stuck to pop all night. “Peter?” you drew his attention back away from flirting with Gwen. “Did anyone come near our drinks?” He shook his head.

    “You know I wouldn’t-” he protested.

    “I know it wasn’t you. But someone did,” you countered, your words were slurring and the world was starting to spin. Shit. You had to get out of here. Now.

    “We can make sure she gets home safely. Looks like she had too much to drink,” the old boys you had rejected earlier suggested. Peter stood, standing between them and you.

    “We’re fine, guys.” Peter told them firmly. “Y/N, call your boyfriend,” Peter told you just as firmly. That was an excellent idea. The guys finally realized they messed up and made an excuse to go bother someone else.

    How did you make a phone call again?

    “Y/N, where’s your phone?” Peter asked. You just blinked up at him confused. He pulled out his own Stark tech phone. “Karen, tell Loki to get here, now,” he snapped at it.

    “Yes, sir,” Karen answered.

    “Hold on, Y/N. Stay with me,” Peter bid you. Gwen stayed nearby, though she looked scared. “Gwen, we’ll give you a ride home too,” he told her. She nodded. She was scared, but she seemed ok.

    Loki appeared in front of you a moment later in full battle costume. “What’s wrong?” he demanded. You just stared up at him, dizzy, confused, and fighting to stay conscious.

    “Someone drugged her drink,” Peter explained quickly.

    “You called Loki? The guy who tried to take over the world?” Gwen demanded.

    “You saw him today. Besides, Y/N is dating Loki. He was the best one to call,”

    “Happy is on the way to pick you up. Wait for him outside,” Loki told Peter. Peter nodded, grabbed Gwen’s hand and led her out of the house.

    “Loki?” you asked softly. You were quickly losing the fight with consciousness.

    “I’m here, darling. Whoever did this is going to pay,” he snarled, daggers and illusions appeared around him. You weren’t sure if they were real or a figment of your imagination. You brain was not connecting with reality very well at the moment.

    Loki was going to kill every single person in this house because one of them had drugged you.

    There was nothing you could do about it either.


	10. Chapter 10

    Even through your drugged haze, you knew you couldn’t let Loki hurt the innocent students. His illusions and daggers and magic were keeping everyone in the house, no one was escaping until he let them. Your brain just wanted to sleep and it was so hard to do anything, but you had to do something. You knew Loki wasn’t a monster, but if he killed a bunch of high school students, no one else was ever going to believe that.

    So you summoned all of you ability to get your body to do what it was told. “Loki ... don’t... attack... the innocent,” somehow you managed to get the words out. Damn drugs were _not_ helping. You needed help before Loki did something stupid. “You’re... not... a... monster... don’t... let... them... make you one,” you threw the last words out in desperation. The world was darkening, spinning dangerously, even though you were firmly sitting on a couch. You didn’t have much time. It was taking all your effort just to stay conscious. You had to stay conscious, to find out what happened next. Loki hesitated, though, considering your words.

    It was Jemma, brave, stupid, human Jemma who stepped forward to face down the enraged god. “Loki of Asgard,” she greeted him formally with a curtsy. She was wearing a dress tonight too. Loki hesitated, obviously recognizing her, but seemed like he couldn’t quite place from where through his rage. “It is I, Jemma of the Junior Class. We met this afternoon,” she reminded him, her tone carefully polite. Loki nodded once.

    “I am not letting the individuals who harmed my lady escape,” Loki snarled, daggers in hand.

    “Of course not,” Jemma replied pleasantly. “Allow me to care for your lady while you hunt the monsters who did this,” she offered. She was offering him an alternative to just killing them all, reminding him that some of them were good people. Loki considered her words, considered that he’d _liked_ this girl when he met her earlier this afternoon. Thank all the gods that he did.

    He nodded curtly, the effort not to destroy everyone taking all of his control. “The rest of the team will arrive soon. I would like to find the culprits before they do.” He handed Jemma one of his daggers. It was as long as her arm. “I leave my lady in your care, Lady Jemma of the Junior Class.” Loki stalked into the crowd to begin his hunt and Jemma ran over to you.

    “Y/N, are you still awake?” she asked frantically. The relief that her actions had worked so far was visible on her face. She’d survived talking the god of chaos down from murdering everyone here.

    “Yes.” You managed the single word. It was so hard and you felt everything slipping. You weren’t going to be able to hold out much longer against the drugs. It was a miracle you’d lasted this long.

    “Damn morons. You were the _last_ person they should’ve tried this on. Y/N, if you have _any_ advice for keeping Loki from killing us all, now would be a _really_ good time to share,” Jemma said firmly. It took all of you will power to focus on her. You were desperately losing the fight against the drugs.

    “He can hear lies, even his illusions can. If anyone tells him a lie any lie, he _will_ assume they are guilty. If he goes homicidal, focus his attention back on me, tell him I need help, get his focus back on protection,” you don’t know how you got the words out, but you threw them at her as fast as you could. Dealing with Loki’s temper and protective streak meant learning how to leash it and control it to something useful. Focusing him on protection instead of murder was the key. You weren’t sure you were being clear. “Sorry, I-”

    Jemma shook her head. “I got it, I’ll spread the word. Don’t apologize. It’s impressive you’re still conscious,”

    Everything else came in pieces

    Spiderman returned and helped Loki

    The two kids who had looked too older were bound up in webs

    Tony appeared. He rushed over to where you were fading in and out of consciousness on the couch. You could barely open your eyes and had trouble focusing on him, even in his bright red and gold ironman suit. He seemed to establish you weren’t in immediate danger of death. “Loki, take Y/N home,” Loki hesitated, daggers drawn, and took a step toward the webbed-up guys. “Loki, protect my daughter, protect your girlfriend. Get her home.” Tony’s voice was more firm. Thor must’ve told him how to deal with Loki when he was this enraged. “I will deal with them,”

    “One thing first,” Loki said pleasantly. He stepped over to the guys and cut the webs from them, as if to give them a fair fight. It was nowhere near a fair fight. Loki was a fully trained warrior and had been raised as an Asgardian. They stood no chance. Loki quickly, efficiently, and very, very thoroughly beat the shit out of them. You could hear bones snapping from across the room and he left a dagger in each of them to remember him by. The entire crowd watched in shocked horror and amazement. The girls who had fears for their own safety at a party were amazed and seemed to idolize Loki.

    “I didn’t see that,” Tony commented as Loki passed him to come to your side. Loki nodded. Tony would claim that he had no idea how the boys were injured. The kids would be coerced into agreeing with him.

    Loki stood in front of your couch and turned to Jemma first. “Thank you for your assistance, Lady Jemma of the Junior Class,” Loki bid her formally. She nodded in reply and tried to hand him the dagger back. “Keep it, with my regards,” he told her, then turned to you and swept you up into his arms. You made a small involuntary noise of protest, too out of it to really realize what was going on. “Hush, love. It’s me,” he told you gently. His words were soft and soothing and you calmed, trusting him. “Close your eyes. Teleporting the first time is an experience...” he told you gently. “You’re safe with me.” Somehow that got through your drug addled mind. You closed your eyes and finally succumbed to the inevitable unconsciousness, trusting him with your safety.

    *

    It felt like a long time later before you woke again. You were still groggy and your head was fuzzy and on fire. You recognized at once that you weren’t in your own bed. This was definitely not your bed and not your room. You bolted up into a sitting position, looking around frantically. “Are you awake this time, darling?” Loki’s voice asked from nearby. Your head whipped toward the sound of his voice. Your brain cleared enough to recognize this as Loki’s room. He was sitting in the chair near to the bed, obviously he’d been keeping guard.

    “I’m awake,” you rasped, your throat dry. You were still trying to remember what happened. All you knew was that you were tucked under a pile of blankets in Loki’s bed.

    “That’s a relief. You were not the last time we spoke,” he commented dryly. “Your repulsors are on the nightstand and the ibuprofen and water Lady Natasha said would help. My apologies for not getting up yet, but you did shoot me last time you woke and the wound had not quite healed yet,”

    “I shot you?” you asked, even more confused. “I’m sorry,”

    “At least you really are awake this time,” he chuckled. “Shower and clean clothes first, or explanations?” he asked.

    “Explanations,” you replied firmly.

    “What do you remember?” he asked gently as you reached for the ibuprofen and water. You noticed you were still wearing the same dress you’d had on last night. You trusted Loki, but it was still a relief. You took a sip of water and caught him up quickly on what you remembered, wrapping his blankets more firmly around yourself as you spoke. Loki nodded when you had finished. “They admitted to what they did. They saw Peter take your cups to get refills and dumped the drugs in yours when he had his back turned to get the soda bottle. They are in the hospital and will be going to jail afterwards. Trust me, their physical injuries are the least of their troubles,” Loki added with a malicious glint in his eyes. You didn’t even dare to ask what he’d done to them besides the ass kicking he’d handed them before he’d gotten you out of there. “I brought you back here where I could be sure you would be safe until you recovered,” he added when you wisely didn’t ask him for more details on the assholes.

    “The team didn’t fight you on that?” you asked.

    “They tried. And failed.” he replied pleasantly. You weren’t sure you wanted to know about that either. He finally got out of the chair and sat on the bed next to you, pulling you into his arms. You didn’t fight him, though he hissed in pain when he moved. “I should have killed those-” you didn’t recognize the word he used, it must have been a filthy curse in Asgardian indeed.

    “I think beating the shit of out them, imprisoning them, and whatever else you did will be torture enough,” you reminded him, curling into the safety of his arms.

    “They hurt what’s mine,” he snarled.

    “They were going to,” you agreed softly, gently, carefully. “You stopped them and they’ll never be able to try it again. So what happened to get you shot?” you asked, concerned and confused, since you didn’t remember shooting him.

    “I neglected to remember that you were wearing your repulsors. I should have disarmed you when I put you to bed. You woke in the middle of the night trapped in a drugged nightmare. I got in the way of a repulsor shot. I felt it a good idea to remove them after that.” He shrugged, but you could see it pained him.

    “Where?” you asked, concerned. He sighed, but lifted his shirt so you could see the burn across his side.

    “Don’t worry, love, I heal quickly,”

    “Still sorry,” you told him.

    “It’s alright, darling,” he replied and kissed your forehead. “Are you alright?”

    You thought over the answer before you nodded. He seemed more reassured for the fact that you thought it over. “I will be. Still feeling...off, and starving, and in desperate need of a shower, but I’ll be ok. Thanks to you.”

    “You’re mine to protect. I failed you last night,” he said sadly. You leaned up and kissed him.

    “You did no such thing,” you told him firmly. He finally seemed satisfied with that answer after a few more kisses and more reassurances that you were ok. Once he was calmed and reassured, you moved to get out of his arms. “Much as I’d love to stay curled in your arms all day, I am really gross and need a shower,” you told him when he protested. He let you go reluctantly.

    “Use mine?” he asked softly. You gave him a look. He looked at you with such pleading sad eyes when he begged. “Please?”

    “Why?” you asked.

    “So I can stand guard,” he replied quickly, since you were actually giving him a chance to hear his answer. You sighed.

    “Fine, but I need something to wear,” you reminded him. You weren’t getting back in this dress, quite possibly ever again. He summoned and handed you a bundle of clothes. You took them and went to his bathroom to get a shower. He seemed to relax and actually smiled when you came back out dressed in his pajama pants and t-shirt, smelling of his soap and shampoo. It took way too much effort and quite a few reminders that you were hungry to get him to agree to leave the room with you. There had been no point trying to convince him to let you leave without him. He was being super overprotective today, which made sense, but it was infuriating in your own home. He calmed again after you’d eaten and agreed to curl up on the couch in the livingroom with him for a nice calm morning of watching movies in his arms. He petted your hair while you watched the movie, kissing the top of your head repeatedly as if he needed to remind himself that you were there and safe.

    You were going to have to yell at him if he stayed in this mood too long, but for today, you would let him fuss.


	11. Chapter 11

    Loki was overprotective all day and growled when anyone came to close to you. You jabbed him hard when he tried to growl at Tony. “Behave,” you scolded him lightly and bribed him with a chocolate to stop growling at everyone. “They’re not going to hurt me,” you told him and popped another chocolate in his mouth when he opened it to protest.

    When even the chocolates didn’t help, you dragged him down to the training room to beat up on dummies until he worked out some of his rage. He finally burned off most of his rage when Thor came down and sparred with him. His rage didn’t burn the rest of the way out until Thor pulled a nasty trick on him, with a quick wink to you ahead of time as your only warning. Thor grabbed you, holding you to him with a blade to your throat. You shrieked in surprise and shocked fear. You logically knew that Thor wouldn’t hurt you, but he had never acted like this before either. Loki’s rage flared and he lunged for Thor. Thor pushed you behind him to safety. You scrambled further away staring in awe at the furious battle. You realized then that you had never seen either of them truly fight. Loki wasn’t a match for Thor physically, but he fought with speed, magic, and cleverness, where Thor faced his battles head-on. Thor would still win this match, you knew, but Loki was making him work for it. The battle was almost faster than your eyes could track and vicious, this wasn’t sparring or a battle against mortals. This was Loki legitimately trying to kill Thor.

    You saw the moment Loki burned out the last of his rage, saw him stumble, his magic flickering. You rushed between them, blasting Thor away with one of your repulsors, though the shot was at nearly the lightest setting, just enough to shock him and keep him from smashing you with Mjolnir. You steadied Loki when he started to crumple, exhausted after the furious battle.

    Thor came over calmly and took Loki’s weight from you. He threw Loki over his shoulder, though he was gentle about it, despite Loki’s weak protests. “Brother, you were never a physical fighter, you _would_ have your first experience with battle fury on Midgard,” Thor commented gently. Loki just groaned in reply. “Apologies, Lady Y/N,” Thor told you formally. “It was unkind to include you in this, but Loki needed to burn off the last of the battle fury in a safe manner and this was the best way,”

    “Battle fury?” you asked, following Thor from the room. Loki seemed nearly unconscious draped over Thor’s shoulder.

    “It is not a common problem with my brother. He is generally a magician and a scholar. It can sometimes be hard for our warriors to disengage themselves from battle, especially if the battle is for something, or someone, they love. They get lost in the fear and rage and lash out at anyone and anything around them. It was safe for him to burn off the last of his fear and rage against me, and much preferable to him hurting someone on the team or any of the Midgardians. He should be back to normal when he wakes,” Thor added kindly. You walked with him all the way back to Loki’s room and opened the door for him. Thor laid the unconscious Loki in his bed, but you pulled the blankets up around him. “If you would like to do him a kindness, make sure you are here when he wakes. And please, try not to be too hard on him for this. It was not his fault,”

    You nodded. “Thanks, Thor. I’ll take care of him,”

    “Thank you, Lady. Make sure he eats something when he wakes.” You rolled your eyes.

    “After living with you for years, I think I know how much you two eat,” you teased him. He laughed, gave you a small bow, and left you to care for your Loki. You brushed his hair back from his face before you searched his bookshelf for something to read and curled in the chair next to his bed to watch over him while he recovered.

    *

    Loki shot bolt upright a couple hours later. You rushed to his side, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Shh, love, it’s ok,” you told him gently, trying to ease his panic.

    “Where’s Thor? What-?” you pulled him to you and rested his head on your shoulder, petting his hair until he calmed.

    “Thor said you were caught in something called battle fury. Everything’s ok. You’ve just been sleeping it off,” you told him gently. He finally calmed, but you kept running your fingers through his hair, until he melted and purred softly. You smiled warmly at him, knowing that it was cheating to use his weaknesses against him, but his happiness was contagious and warmed your heart whenever you saw his true happiness.

    He pouted when you tried to get off of the bed. “I’m hungry,” you told him. “We should go find something to eat.” You offered him a hand. He took it and let you lead him from the room. He still seemed drained and off, not enraged anymore, but he was unsteady and trying to regain his emotional balance. You settled him on one of the stools in the kitchen where he could watch you cook. You didn’t want to wait for takeout and he was fascinated by watching food be prepared. You made a giant pot of seafood fettuccine and garlic bread to go with it. You didn’t cook often, but this was one of the things you could handle making. You dished some out on a plate for yourself, and tripled the portion on the plate you handed to Loki. He looked at you incredulously, but didn’t argue. You sat with him at the dining room table and you lit a single candle between you with a smirk. He laughed at your mock-romantic gesture. With his laughter and food in his belly, he was finally back to normal.


	12. Chapter 12

    “Loki!” you shrieked at Loki when he not only broke into your locked lab, but dragged you away from the desk where you’d been working and hauled you to your feet from your comfy spinny chair. He threw you over his shoulder before you could protest again or do anything but look stupidly up at him. “Loki! Put me down! I’m working!” you complained at him, though you suddenly felt exhausted now that you weren’t actively working.

    “No, darling. You are going to eat something and sleep. You have not left your lab in almost four days.” Loki told you firmly as he carried you from the room. His arm was a vice around your legs, holding you firmly over his shoulder. You weren’t struggling your way out of this. “What have you even eaten?” he grumbled.

    “Blueberries...and coffee,” you told him sheepishly. “How’d you even get in here?” you demanded, trying to get back to being angry at him. That was easier than being in trouble for not sleeping or eating in days. You’d locked your lab while you were working and remembered that he didn’t have access. You only had a week left over summer vacation and wanted to get the project you’d worked on all summer done before school started again.

    “Karen was worried and let me in. Apparently there is a boyfriend override when you’re being stupid,” Loki growled, not setting you down even when he’d made it to the elevator. You flushed when you realized the team was in the living room and saw you being carried in over Loki’s shoulder. Nat and Clint laughed at your predicament. Tony was passed on one of the couches, drunk. He and Pepper had been having issues and fighting, so he was being particularly stupid. That’s why he hadn’t noticed you hadn’t left your lab.

    “Nat! Help!” you pleaded with her.

    She shook her head and took a picture instead. “I’m not arguing with a god over this. Especially when he’s right.” Loki wouldn’t put you down until he set you on your usual spot on the couch. Clint brought you over a Chinese container with your usual order. Loki sat next to you, glaring until you began to eat.

    “You’re as bad as he is,” Clint commented, gesturing toward Tony. “What have you been working on so hard anyway?”

    “Just a project I want to get finished before classes start,” you hedged and refused to answer any more questions by shoving food in your mouth. You really hadn’t noticed that you hadn’t eaten or slept in days. Loki finally seemed to be relaxing now that you were eating. “Sorry, Loki,” you told him sheepishly.

    “Please don’t lock me out again,” he told you. You could see how worried he’d been. You nodded.

    “I won’t. I’ll get you access next time I’m in the lab,” you promised. You’d forgotten he hadn’t had access to the lab until he burst in. After your food was gone, you gave Loki a kiss and insisted you were going to get a shower and go to bed. He wouldn’t believe you until he had walked you to your bedroom door. He still wasn’t happy until you let him sit on your bed and wait for you to get out of the shower. You passed out on him the second you laid down on the bed when you were clean.

    “Stubborn little darling,” he sighed, but settled himself more comfortably and let you use him as a pillow.

    *

    It was a few days before you managed to piss off Loki again. You didn’t mean to, but there really was no choice. You heard the call come in through Jarvis for Tony to join the others. They desperately needed help across town. Tony was passed out drunk, and in no shape to help anyone. He and Pepper still hadn’t made up. Cap’s call sounded so desperate though that you did something incredibly stupid.

    You ran down to your lab and put on your own Mach 1 ironman suit. You had made it at the beginning of the summer. The Mach 2 wasn’t quite ready yet. That was the project you were trying to complete before the end of summer. You wouldn’t have worn the Mach 2 for this anyway, it was a much more minimal design. The Mach 1 looked nearly identical to Tony’s, though a little smaller, the metal a slimmer alloy and more fit for your shape than his. You didn’t think the team would notice in an emergency. You’d also been working on your flying all summer too. After a quick order to Karen to make your voice sound like Tony’s when you spoke, you flew to the emergency across town and prayed no one ever found out that you weren’t your dad today.

    *

    You followed Cap’s orders through the battle, tried not to speak too much and give yourself away, and tried to pretend to be Tony as close as possible. Your suit was well built, but you had no battle experience, unlike Tony.

    It was that little fact that would get Loki pissed at you when he found out about this little adventure, especially since you hadn’t brought him along. You realized much too late that you should have brought him.

    It was your lack of experience that somehow ended with you being unconscious, in the middle of the street. “Tony!” you vaguely heard Cap’s voice. You tried to find consciousness again. You had to before. Before-

    The Hulk ripped the mask off of your helmet.

    That’s what you had to become conscious before. And you had just failed. Miserably.

    Shit.

    You were so dead.

    “Y/N!?!” the team demanded, staring at you in shock as you blinked back the blackness of unconsciousness and sat up slowly.

    “Surprise?”


	13. Chapter 13

    “Y/N?” “What are you doing here?” “Where’s Tony?” “What’s with this suit?” came the barrage of questions as you blinked stupidly up at the team. Your head was bleeding and you mind felt fuzzy.

    “Y/N.” Cap said firmly. “Take that suit off now,” he ordered. His tone was so firm and angry that you knew you were in a ton of trouble. And would probably be grounded forever once Tony found out about this. You gave the order to Karen and the suit removed itself, folding itself once it was off into a small rectangle about the size of a hardcover book. Cap grabbed it from your lap while you protested. Nat looked you over.

    “Besides the head wound which needs stitches, she’s fine,” Nat told Cap.

    Cap nodded brusquely, obviously still super pissed. He hauled you to your feet and kept a firm grip on your arm. “Nat, get Hulk calmed down. We’re going home. Now.” He hauled you to the jet, keeping such a firm grip on your arm that you were sure it was going to bruise. He sat you firmly in a seat on the jet. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

    “Helping,” you replied sourly. You had helped. Cap glared and you shrank back from his anger. “Dad’s passed out drunk. Again. Or still. I heard the call come in. You needed someone out here desperately. I got my suit and came out to help.” You explained quickly.

    “Why do you have a suit?” he demanded.

    “I made it,” you snarled back. Just because you were in high school didn’t mean you couldn’t create you own ironman suit. You were your father’s daughter.

    “And when were you planning on telling us about this?”

    You looked down at your lap. “After I convinced dad to let me help... I was hoping you wouldn’t notice the difference tonight...” you admitted softly. Cap softened marginally since you were obviously in distress and had activated his mom mode.

    “Sit there. Don’t move. Don’t touch anything. This isn’t over,” Cap told you firmly as the others were getting on the jet.

    “Um...Y/N... where does Loki think you are?” Nat’s voice was hesitant. All of the jet’s occupants turned to stare at you.

    You shrugged. “At home? Unless he’s figured out I’m gone.... I didn’t exactly tell him what I was doing.” Last you had seen him, he was going to the library to pick out another book.

    Loki was going to kill you.

    *

    Clint flew the jet back to the tower as fast as possible. The second the jet had landed, Cap was back on you, hauling you to your feet and dragging you by the arm into the tower. “Cap, let me go!” you told him.

    “No way.” He growled, dragging you to the main floor of the tower. The living room looked like a bomb had gone off. All of the furniture was thrown against the walls, everything toppled and plenty of things broken.

    “Y/N?” Came Tony’s voice from a couch that had been righted. You could see he was nursing a hangover. Somehow he’d sobered up in the last hour or so. You blanched, not expecting to have to deal with him until tomorrow at least.

    Loki ran into the room then and yanked you away from Cap, holding you too tightly. “Y/N, where were you? We couldn’t find you,” his voice was frantic. You wrapped your arms around his waist.

    “Y/N was flying an ironman suit that she made herself into a battle across town,” Cap interjected oh so helpfully.

    “You did what?” Tony and Loki demanded at the same time. Loki finally took a step back to look you over. He placed his hand against your head to heal the cut there. He was still angry, but he wouldn’t let you stay injured.

    “The team needed help,” you said softly, refusing to look at either of them. Loki glared at you, but it wasn’t just a glare. It was also hurt and betrayal.

    “You promised,” he said softly, his hurt and sorrow worse than his anger. “You promised you would come get me when you did something stupid again.”

    “You would have come with me?” you asked incredulously. You were also one of the only ones brave enough to stand up to the god when he was angry like this. He would have made you stay. He looked away then, and you knew that you were right, he wouldn’t have let you go help. He might have gone, but would have made sure you’d stayed. “They needed dad, but he was in no shape. I know I’m no substitute, but my family needed my help. They needed protecting. What would you have done?” you demanded, hot anger in your eyes. You had made your own ironman suit and you had used it and helped the team. It was your first mission, of course there’d been some bumps. You should have been proud of your accomplishment. Instead you were getting your ass chewed by the entire team. “Next time will you come with me?” you asked softly, hoping to appease Loki.

    “Next time?” Tony demanded, the glass of water he’d been holding smashing to the ground and shattering. He grabbed your shoulders and shook you hard, making you yelp in fear and surprise. “There will be no ‘next time’,” he snarled. “I never wanted this life for you. Never wanted you to take on the mantle of ironman. This is _never_ happening again. You could have died out there,” his voice caught and you saw the fear for a moment before he switched back to anger. Anger at both you and himself.

    “I didn’t, though. I made that suit, dad, and I made it well. At least until Hulk ripped the mask off of it...” you grumbled. “ _You_ couldn’t go and the team needed help. What did you expect me to do? For all you want to protect me, and for all that I was adopted, I _am_ your daughter. What did you expect me to do when our family was in danger?” you demanded hotly. He blanched, finally taking in what you were saying.

    “You’re right. It should have been me out there,” he finally admitted. “But you’re not out of trouble. You shouldn’t have gone in my place. You’re grounded at least until the entire team is no longer pissed off at you, and we are _never_ telling Pepper about this. Don’t even think about going in your lab. I’ll make up more punishments for this stunt later I’m sure. At least part of your punishment is dealing with him.” he gestured his head at Loki, who was still bristling in anger. “Now get to bed,” Tony ordered. You rolled your eyes, but stepped toward the elevator, knowing Loki would follow you so he could return to the part of the conversation where he got to yell at you. Tony took your suit from Cap and actually looked impressed at how compact you were able to get it and the craftsmanship behind it.


End file.
